On Sunday, February 2, 2025, CBS aired its 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Many of the nominations included groundbreaking albums such as Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, and Charli XCX’s brat. All of these albums not only had songs that reached top 5 in Billboard’s Top 100, but also had great media coverage and viral audios stemming from the songs.
Despite being a fan of almost all of the nominations for this year’s GRAMMY awards, I felt a mix of emotions towards the chosen winners: some awards were well-deserved, while other winners were questionable.
The first notable award to me was Doechii’s win for Best Rap Album of the Year with her album ALLIGATOR BITES NEVER HEAL. The other nominees for Best Rap Album included Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You, J. Cole’s Might Delete Later, Eminem’s Death of Slim Shady, and Common’s The Auditorium Vol. 1. Although Doechii’s album was both well-produced and enjoyable, the win didn’t make sense compared to what it was up against.
While listening and comparing all of the nominees, none of the albums truly seemed to me like a clear winner. I felt as if they all were objectively good albums, however, no particular one was a major standout. In addition to this, I do believe that it is safe to say ALLIGATOR BITES NEVER HEAL and We Don’t Trust You are the two albums that were most competitive for the award. That being said, We Don’t Trust You had more memorable songs in terms of both performance and media impact. The album’s song “Like That” not only held a number one spot in the Billboard Top 100 for three consecutive weeks but was also a major escalation for the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud online. Other memorable songs on We Don’t Trust You included “Type Sh*t,” which peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Top 100, and “Fried (She a Vibe),” which reached number 33 on the Billboard Top 100. Both of those songs, much like “Like That,” had major recognition and trends surrounding them on social media, more specifically TikTok. These statistics alone, I believe, were enough to grant Future and Metro the win, as Doechii only just recently started gaining major social media attention for “Denial is a River,” a song that only recently reached spot 65 on the Billboard Top 100.
Out of all the winners of the 2025 GRAMMYs, Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” winning Song of the Year was the most deserving award of the night. “Not Like Us” held the number one spot on the Billboard’s 100 Hot Rap chart for a noteworthy 21 weeks.Both Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” songs, similar to “Not Like Us”, performed well on the Billboard Top 100, peaking in the Top 3. When disregarding the overall statistics and outcome of each nominated song, Lamar’s song had a major impact on pop culture as a whole. In addition to “Not Like Us” being one of the most currently overplayed songs, it was an iconic moment in Lamar’s public feud with Drake, further intensifying the argument. Although I personally enjoyed the other nominations significantly more than Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” I do believe that the impact Lamar has had on entertainment culture in the past year is more than enough to award “Not Like Us” with Song of the Year.
One award in particular has caused a recent uproar on social media: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter taking home the title of “Album of the Year” (AOTY). Beyoncé’s victory has left many, including me, unsure of whether or not that was the right decision. A strong candidate who was a clear winner to me was Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (HMHAS). Although Cowboy Carter had a better performance in terms of streams and placement on the Billboard 100, HMHAS was an overall more enjoyable album. Her album consisted of songs in the “bedroom pop” genre, which I initially preferred over country, and also the anticipation and teasers of this album are two reasons why I felt it to be a more pleasant listening experience in comparison to Cowboy Carter. To say Eilish was more deserving of being granted AOTY isn’t to say Beyoncé’s work for Cowboy Carter was bad or even that it didn’t deserve any recognition, it’s simply a comment on the recognition both Beyoncé and Eilish have received for their work put into their most recent albums.
Beyoncé shouldn’t have won AOTY for Cowboy Carter, considering the fact she has had many stronger albums in the past such as Lemonade and Renaissance, which she did not win for. Although Cowboy Carter was a great album, the fact that this is the album that granted Beyoncé her first AOTY award is something worth thinking about. Even though Beyoncé’s win for both AOTY and Best Country Album is remarkable, as she is the fourth Black woman to win AOTY and also the first Black woman to win Best Country Album, HMHAS should have received AOTY.
Compared to Eilish’s previous works, HHMAS was the first album of hers that listeners were able to feel and hear her dedication and pride in what she’s released. The overall performance of songs like “Birds of a Feather” and the highly anticipated release of her previously leaked work, “Blue,” are reasons that motivated me to pick Eilish as this year’s winner for AOTY. Despite the fact that both Eilish and Beyoncé have previously won GRAMMYs in the past, the two were not appropriately recognized during this year’s awards: Beyoncé earned a well-deserved award, however it was for an album that didn’t deserve it when factoring the losses of her past projects, while Eilish created a strong album that wasn’t as appreciated at the ceremony as it should have been.
Sabrina Carpenter’s achievement for both Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Solo Performance was deserved, and I couldn’t think of a better person to win. My initial reaction to Carpenter winning Best Pop Vocal Album was that there were more deserving winners such as Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine. However, while looking back on what Carpenter won for, I do believe that she was an ideal winner for Best Pop Vocal Album. Even though Eternal Sunshine was my personal favorite album out of all the nominations for this award, and I’d like to have seen it win, Carpenter nailed the pop album vibe with Short n’ Sweet.
During the recent rise of Carpenter’s career, I’d like to credit her with being able to bring back “real” pop music that’s nothing other than pop. Her work on Short n’ Sweet was exactly how she titled it, “short and sweet.” Her album was both enjoyable and perfectly highlighted all of her vocal abilities. In addition, the album had many major hits including “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” and “Taste,” which all debuted within the top three on the Billboard Top 100. To express that Short n’ Sweet was the best fit for Best Pop Vocal Album isn’t to discredit the other nominated works, such as Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine, and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, but instead, it’s to highlight Carpenter’s outstanding job in creating, in my opinion, the perfect pop album.
Going against the fact that I wasn’t fond of every GRAMMY winner, I do believe that as a whole this year’s airing ended with feelings of contentment. Many of this year’s winners were well-deserving, and those that I found to be more questionable were still equally as deserving as the rest.
